Sarah Weinman - Sex, Thugs, Roll, and Rock & Roll

Another week, and they gave me permission to go in the gun room, ’cause you had to have one of the main guys open it with a key, and you had to have permission to go in. They took me in there-Headmaster, Billy, and Juan. They gave me a gun, or rather they told me to pick anything I wanted. I picked an automatic pistol out of the pile and I pulled an AK-47 off the rack. I got some ammunition, clips for the AK and automatic. I should have got more clips, but I was nervous. I ended up with an extra load for the AK-47, one for the automatic.

“You’re gonna need that shit,” Headmaster said, “things we got going. We got a little gang on the other side, bunch of spicks-”

“Hey,” Juan said.

“Not our spicks,” Headmaster said, and then he looked right at Juan. “And thing is, I don’t care to please you anyway, beaner. I’m the man here, and that makes you the boy. You got me, you fucking pepper gut?”

Juan made a face that looked as if he had just been handed a dead rat to eat. He had been using that kind of talk all along, but it caught him funny going right at him and mad like that.

Headmaster leaned forward till his nose was almost on Juan’s. “I said, you got me?”

Juan nodded. “Sure, man. I got you. No hard feelings.”

“If there is, you’ll live with them,” Headmaster said. He turned to me then, said, “We’re gonna have to cut down on them spicks from out and away. I thought you ought to get your shot to get some blood in, you know? Something serious. Not poking some little girl in the nose or breaking a leg. Something serious.”

“All right,” I said. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re gonna get you and Juan and Billy to saddle up, go over there, and take a little cruise by, spread some lead. These guys, they got them a little meth thing going and that’s our finance, baby. I don’t want them sucking any of our chocolate.”

“A drive-by?” I said.

“That’s what I said, only more than that, really. We’re gonna drive by, and then when they think it’s over, we’re gonna come back on them.”

“They’ll be ready,” Billy said.

“What about civilians?” I said.

“Hell,” Headmaster said, “there ain’t no civilians. They’re the same as that girl you popped, the shit these guys nailed and burned to get in the gang. There’s us and there’s them. You pop a few wives, girlfriends, or kids-that’s the price of doing business. Price of fucking on turf ain’t yours.”

“I got you,” I said.

Headmaster nodded, said, “You boys get what you need?”

Billy said, “We got guns, and we got these.”

He grabbed his loose pants where his balls were, and acted like he was shaking them.

I reluctantly laid the rifle back in the rack, said, “Give me a minute to deliver my last meal,” and went out of the gun room and into the little bathroom off to the side. It was cleaner than the big bathroom right next to the lanes. And the big fuck wasn’t in there stinking it up. I mean, you wouldn’t want to eat off the floor or nothing, but compared to the other one, it was like it had just been sanitized. The other, it never got cleaned, smelled bad, and the toilets all had dark rings inside them. There were boogers on the wall and things written in pen and pencil, blood and snot, and maybe even shit. You went in there, you might step on a needle, a rubber, or find some guy bending a girl over the sink, doing their business, needling enough horse to call it a Clydesdale.

I went in and put the lid down on the toilet and sat there and tried to catch my breath. I was in. I belonged to the gang. It’s what I wanted.

I took out the automatic-a nine-and looked at it, felt cold sweat trickle down from my hairline, run along my face, and drip off my chin. I laid the automatic on my knee. I thought about my brother. I thought about my father. My father, he never got over it. Killed himself. Shot himself.

My brother, in that store, his feet nailed to the floor. And those two jackasses having set a fire just so they could be in a club, a gang. Now here I was, having punched a little girl in the face and taken out a guy’s knee, about to do some real damage. Of course, my reasons for being here were different. I didn’t want to be a member because I respected them, but because I didn’t. I hated them. Especially Juan and Billy, and then the head guy. I wanted what my sensei said was useless to have, vengeance.

After my brother was dead and we had moved away, my dad tried to get it together, but couldn’t. He put a gun in his mouth and blew his worries asunder. I was mad at him, hated him for a while, but then I got over it because I realized how hard it was to carry on. I was doing the same thing, but in a slightly different manner. Throwing it away. But unlike Dad, it wouldn’t just be me and some blood on the living room floor. There were some guys I was gonna flush with me.

If I got out all right, that was good. But I knew this: I was going to make my mark for Dad and for my brother. They were gonna get some blowback on that business they done.

I picked up the automatic and laid it on the sink, lifted the lid, and took a piss. Then I zipped up and washed my face, stuck the automatic in my waistband, and went out of there. When I came back into the gun room, the door still open, Juan looked at me kind of funny, said, “Man, we thought you fell in.”

“I was seriously packing,” I said.

I picked up the AK-47. I had shot one before. I had learned a lot about guns from my sensei, the one who told me that guns are about romance and power more than they are about self-defense or constitutional amendments. He also said, “Boys like their toys, the more dangerous and explosive the better.”

He said he liked them too, and went to bed at night bothered by it.

I went to bed at night bothered by everything. I didn’t see my brother die, but I could imagine how horrible it was. Him crawling and that fire eating at him and that goddamn popcorn popping. And across the way, those two fucks laughing, getting a kick out of it all.

I looked at Headmaster and Juan and Billy, and thought, These three, they’re the main guys I want. I could just do it now. I could open up and they wouldn’t know plums from dog balls. In a moment, it would all be over.

But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted more than that, and though I was willing to give what it took to get even, I preferred the opportunity to stay alive. Didn’t happen, didn’t happen.

I was ready to play either way.

“What now?” I said.

“I’m thinking,” Headmaster said, “we should probably arm a couple of the other guys, take them with you. It’s best not to take a whole wad. You do that, you’re more likely to end up butt-fucking one another. Too many, that’s a fucking crowd. A small hit force, that’s the way to go.”

“You going?” I asked.

The Headmaster looked me as if I had asked if I could stick my finger up his ass and fish for shit.

“No. You’re going. You and Juan and Billy, maybe a couple of others. I go when I want and if I want. You aren’t questioning my chops, are you?”

“No,” I said. “I was just wondering.”

“I’ll do the wondering for both of us, blood.”

“All right,” I said.

“Damn right, it’s all right. Juan, you go out there and pick you some wham-bang-dangers-two of them-then let’s get them fixed with some tools and some lead, and then you guys, I’ll lay it out to you. The whole shebang of a plan.”

One way , I thought, one easy way is, I isolate Juan and Billy, take them out . That would be the good way, the smart way. But it wasn’t satisfying to me, not even by a little bit. I imagined Tim squirming with his feet nailed to the floor, screaming, the unbearable heat, the flames licking, him ripping his feet apart to get loose.